A Lucky Toss
by Eleni121
Summary: Kairi didn't want to go to the Host Club with Selphie. She didn't plan on being forced to share a cab with the insufferable host Sora, either. Life's sweetest moments happen when we least expect them. AU SoraKairi.
1. A Lost Puppy Gets Lucky

A Lucky Toss

Chapter One

A Lost Puppy Gets Lucky

The sun had set hours ago. Dim neon light flew around the crowded streets of Osaka, as two girls walked down the street. The sound of their high heels hitting the pavement was barely audible over the din of the crowd. There were the businessmen, buttoned up in black suits and loaded down by their heavy briefcases as they made their way down the street. There were women, clothes of varied colors and cut, hair mostly long and curled and high heels clanging on the sidewalks. There was even the occasional high school student dashing between pedestrians, ringing the bell on their bikes as they flew past. Despite the variety, everyone on the street seemed to have the same hurried look etched across their features.

"This is such a bad idea, Selphie…" Spoke the taller of the girls, Kairi. She was pretty with strikingly red hair in the sea of black and brown, and rather delicate features, which were now contorted with worry and apprehension. Selphie, the source of the worry laughed lightheartedly beside her.

"Don't be ridiculous, Kairi. You're going to _love_ it!" Selphie said and her voice rung for a few moments in Kairi's ears. It was rather high pitched and had a habit of doing that.

"I highly, highly doubt that. I'm just not the kind of person that would enjoy this kind of… place."

"You can say _Host Club_, Kairi, it won't kill you…" Selphie mumbled to her friend. They turned the corner onto a street that was, if possible, even more crowded than the one before.

"You don't know that…" Kairi trailed off and sighed in exasperation, before continuing, "Look, this is ridiculous. Selphie, let's just go back. There's still time… You can get someone else to go with you…"

"No backing out. You _promised_. And we're practically there," Selphie said, her eyes were alight with excitement as she led the hesitant, but now silent Kairi up to the entrance of a building, "Ahhh, Here it is, Club Midori." Selphie practically squeaked the last bit of her sentence, her voice rising to a record-breaking pitch. Kairi looked up.

"As if it wasn't obvious enough…" Some twenty feet above them Club Midori was written in huge neon green letters. Kairi took a moment to stare at the sign, and when she looked away, she found she could still see the shadow of the words stamped on everything in her sight. She looked, now, at the Club Midori branded Selphie, who was self consciously adjusting her yellow dress, her hands running up and down to straighten out all of her nonexistent wrinkles.

Men, hair spiked in imitation of the models in fashion magazines, stood outside the club, talking to women passing by, trying to get customers… or trap them, more like, Kairi thought. Although they technically had no need to approach either her or Selphie, Kairi inwardly prayed they wouldn't in the first place. The last thing she wanted was to make a host feel like he had "captured" her interest. There was nothing quite so irritating as the people who stood on street corners and tried to sell her things, and, of course, these men were selling something.

It wasn't sex, exactly. But at the same time, it probably was.

Selphie dragged her in, quite literally, by the hand.

* * *

"You ready yet?" Sora looked up, a man with bleached silver hair towered over him, as he sat. His shirt was half unbuttoned and his brown hair was spiked but askew. In his hands, he held a book on which gold lettering spelled, _Principles of Quantum Mechanics_. The skin under his eyes was several shades darker than it might have been had he been blessed with consistent nights of uninterrupted sleep, but his blue eyes were sharp. He smiled up at his friend.

He was sitting in a small, rather bare room. It had blue walls and a few plush red couches, of which he occupied the smallest, with his back against the armrest of one end, and his feet propped lazily on the other.

"As ready as always, Riku. Go bother someone else," Sora said jokingly and snapped the book shut.

"Tidus is whining like a little bitch, as usual. Cloud and Roxas are working the entrance, everyone else must be doing _something_ productive, because they're nowhere to be found... and you're reading god knows what, for who knows what reason," Riku shook his head.

"What time is it?" Sora asked. Riku looked down at the silver watch on his wrist.

"Eleven forty five. I'd say about fifteen lovely guests have already been seated," Riku replied. Not a second after he had finished speaking the door was thrown in and a blond man threw himself into the room and onto the sofa across from where Sora was sitting.

The blond sighed heavily, placing his hands to his forehead and shaking his head dramatically. Sora and Riku glanced at each other, knowingly.

"What's wrong, Tidus?" Sora asked, the words carrying the inflection of one who had spoken them often. Riku took the time to grab Sora's legs and push them off the armrest and on the floor, forcing Sora to pull himself upright on the couch. Riku plopped down besides him unaffected.

"I've had a look at the girls tonight… and Ms. Tiny," Tidus made a two handed cupping gesture to his chest, "is back. You know, with the voice and the hair and the tiny…" Tidus made the gesture again, "This is the fourth time this week. And she's brought a friend, I'm sure she's just a crazy as Miss tiny" Tidus made the gesture again.

"You need to get over your fear of the word breasts," Riku said bluntly, "It's like you've never seen a pair before…"

"Hey! I have so, and you fucking know it…"

"You know, it's not even worth throwing in the occasional joke around here," Riku sighed and shook his head. Tidus glared at him, "Maybe if you sleep with her, she'll go away. Probably not, but some of them are that way, the sex just makes it too real. These women like pretend best, anyway."

"Tidus you don't have to do that, it's good to have regulars. They pay better than most of the new ones," Sora said, and then pushed himself off of the couch, and walked over to look in the mirror at the other side of the room. He leaned in and ran a few fingers through his hair. It had to be perfectly spiky. The poor things were paying for it to be perfectly spiky. He didn't want to let them down.

There was a knock on the door, and a tall man with spiky blond hair and a rather stoic face looked in, "Tidus, you're on deck," He said, looking at the still moping man, who now lay face down on the couch. "You two should get out there in a few, too."

"Yes, Cloud," They all said in unison, some more pleasantly than others. Cloud nodded and removed his head from their break room, shutting the door behind him. Tidus rolled off the couch and onto the floor with a thump, then, making sure it looked like a great effort, pulled himself to his feet, checked his appearance in the mirror, nudging Sora out of the way in the process, and dragged himself out of the room.

"Go easy on it tonight, would you Sora?" Riku mumbled, as he too got off the couch and headed for the door. Sora was buttoning up his black shirt, facing the mirror again. He stopped and turned to Riku.

"You know, it's not like I've got much of a choice," He said, "They love it when I do…"

"I know," Riku replied. Sora crossed the room.

"Don't be such a downer, it'll be… _fun _,"

"Ah, yes, it always is."

* * *

Kairi looked around. Club Midori consisted of an open bar area with tables scattered here and there and smaller rooms off to the side.

"Yes, I reserved that one." Selphie acknowledged a room, somewhat secluded, "More privacy, you know…" She said in an aside to Kairi. Kairi looked around. She was not sure if she would prefer the crowded main room or being shut off in one of the smaller ones with Selphie and her favorite host. Both were somewhat dismal options. Selphie handed her a piece of paper.

Kairi inspected it closely, expecting it to be a drink menu. In fact, it was a menu of a different kind. It listed all of the hosts, their names and pictures were placed with a small description of their personality. Kairi frowned.

"Which one do you like to see again?" Kairi asked Selphie, as they were led to one of the smaller rooms. Selphie grabbed the list right out of Kairi's hands and pointed to a blond man labeled 'Tidus.'

"He's not the handsomest here, but he just really understands me, Kairi. We've got this great connection, you know?" Selphie handed the list back to Kairi for inspection. Kairi got a closer look at the picture. He was very handsome, she had to admit. His light hair and eyes went well somehow with his tan skin. She wondered if the look was natural.

They were seated in the back room. The walls were a dark blue and the lighting was dimmed. Their drink orders were taken and they were informed that Tidus would out very soon. Selphie smiled brightly and pulled out her compact mirror, going over he makeup again, making sure there weren't any mistakes.

"Keep a lookout, Kairi," Selphie ordered.

"Alright," Kairi said. She twirled her fingers absently and looked out at the rest of the club through the open door. People, mostly women, were already seated here and there, some with hosts, some without.

One man in particular caught her eye. His hair was bleached white, but glowed silver in the dim light. He walked across the floor, looking perfectly unhappy to be there. The personification of her own feelings. He was nicely muscled, which was visible under his blue collared shirt. She watched him as he strode across the room, the way that he commanded the attention of the woman in the room, who, while not outright staring, still made quick glances in his direction as he passed; they were almost reverent.

"Who is _he_?" Kairi asked Selphie. Selphie looked around her mirror and out at the club, knowing already who Kairi was referring to.

"Riku. He's the top host here. He has been for over three years now," Selphie explained.

"So he gets the most customers?" Kairi asked.

"He gets the most commissions… I think that's how they do it, anyway he's probably the best looking of them all," Selphie said. Kairi, not able to help herself, glanced down at the list she had been given at the entrance. She read the label under his name.

"Why _The Silent One_?"

"He's never spoken a word. Most people think he was traumatized as a child. As far as anyone knows he's completely mute," Selphie faced Kairi as she spoke, lowering her voice, as one might do when discussing scandal.

Tidus took this moment to make his grand entrance. Kairi recognized him immediately, but did not have the time to warn Selphie, who was still balancing her makeup in one hand. Nonetheless, as if she had a sixth sense, she looked up as he approached, shoved her makeup into her bag, got up and greeted him with a hug.

Kairi felt rather embarrassed.

* * *

"Well, you know how that is, don't you? Of course you do! And then, I went down to the salon with her, and I told her, 'Yes, they will definitely be able to fix this,' so, we waited for an hour there, because, naturally we didn't have an appointment and you know how they are at salons, don't you? Of course you do! So, we were waiting, and she was so worried. She kept saying to me, 'Oh, Selphie, what am I going to do if they can't fix it!' I didn't know what to say to her! It was such an ugly perm. Whoever did it should loose their hair license… Is there such a thing as hair licenses? Do you know? Oh, well, of course you don't! How silly. So they finally get around to her, and they tell her that they can try to chemically straighten it, but it probably wouldn't work because her hair has already been completely dried out with all of the bleach she's put in it, but they tried anyway. Let me tell you, what a frizzy mess they made! It was worse than it was to start with. Of course, I had to run out and buy her a hat, really quick. She was crying so hard on the way home, I had to call a cab. You know how that is, don't you? Of course you do!"

"Of course I do!" He nodded his head, and leaned in, placing his hand on her wrist subtly, and lighting up her cheeks like a twelve-year-old schoolgirl with a secret crush.

The room was quiet in comparison to the rest of the club, from which loud music was blaring. Selphie had requested the secluded room for some privacy with her lovely host, the emotionally vulnerable, sensitive, charming Tidus.

Kairi sad in the corner. She was feeling a mixture of boredom and repulsion. She stared at the two. Tidus would touch her arm, and Selphie would lean in, she would speak, and he would hang on her every word. Like a lost puppy.

In her hands, she held the booklet that was distributed to all newcomers. It contained a cute description of Club Midori, it's stats (the second most popular host club in Osaka, opened in 2005, etc.) and descriptions of its hosts. It was very much like a menu, from which the girls could select whom they wished to spend time with. She had thumbed through it, and after choking down her revulsion at the dehumanization involved in stamping men's pictures and descriptions into pamphlets like food, she had read through the description of Selphie's personal favorite, and the reason she had brought Kairi to Club Midori.

Tidus was literally labeled the "Lost Puppy," the words were written right below his pouting picture. He was described an emotional, vulnerable, and empathetic man who was looking for a lover to hold his hand through the perils of life. Kairi stared at the two of them again, Selphie was talking yet again, it was unclear how long that would continue, but she had little doubt why Selphie had chosen this man above all others.

Kairi looked away from the two of them for a time, and focused instead on her drink, which was still half full. She picked it up and downed the rest rather quickly. It burned the back of her throat, the sensation fascinated her momentarily, and she stared up at the white ceiling. Selphie had stopped talking, Tidus was lighting her cigarette while she smiled delicately and batted her eyelashes at him. When he was finished, he seemed to take notice of Kairi, and put on a shy smile. She smiled back and raised her eyebrows, in expectation of him addressing her instead of Selphie.

"Are you having a good time?" He asked. His voice was delicate, and soft, like his smile.

"Oh, I'm alright! Lovely place, very nice… furnishings."

"I wish you would brighten up! You do have such charming hair, has anyone ever told you that? No need to look like you lost a bet."

* * *

One Week Ago

"I bet I can toss this bottle into that recycling bin across the room," Selphie said. She and Kairi were seated in one of the study rooms in the library. There room was rather large, there were about fifteen students scattered about it, all with open textbooks. Some students were hunched over them with looks of intense concentration; others were asleep, drooling on them.

"It's thirty feet away." Kairi said, then yawned and stretched her arms.

"Say, if I make this, you have to promise to come to Club Midori with me next week," Selphie said suddenly.

"Why would I do that?" Kairi said and laughed.

"Oh, come on! If I keep going alone, Tidus might start to think I'm some kind of loner. That would be terrible. Please, please, please.!"

"Selphie, you're not making any sense…."

"It's not like I'll make it anyway…"

"I guess not."

"So you agree?" Selphie asked. Kairi stared at her and weighed the odds in her head. The situation was so odd, she momentarily wondered if she wasn't one of the students asleep and drooling on the textbooks herself. But, she figured, why not.

"Fine."

Selphie did not miss.

* * *

Kairi just wanted to find the bathroom.

She had asked Tidus for an exact location, but his response had been cut off by a verbal barrage from none other than Selphie, who had remembered some trivial occurrence from the past few days that she hadn't told Tidus about yet.

The room was hazy, the combined effect of the unknowable number of cigarettes that had been or were being smoked in Club Midori that night. The effect was magnified by the lights coming from the bar in the otherwise dark room. The room appeared to be moving as the lights at the bar shifted. There were far too many people in the club. They were mostly girls, all well dressed, their faces painted delicately. They gathered round the hosts, leaning in to them, as if pulled by an invisible force, as if it was against their will. Some smiled, some laughed, some shot what they must have thought to be seductive looks. The hosts, for their part, certainly appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Kairi didn't bother to wonder why. She dodged her way around the tables and people, she had spotted the bathroom sign at the other end of the room. She made a beeline for it, smiling to herself in relief, as she reached the door.

Kairi reached her hand forward to grab the silver handle. Just as her hand made contact, the door pulled open on its own. Kairi was quite surprised to see a young man standing in front of her.

He was young, probably her age, with brown hair that had been haphazardly spiked up and very blue eyes. His face looked rather flushed, and the skin under his eyes was a few shades darker than might have been considered healthy.

She didn't know exactly what to say.

"I think you're headed in the wrong direction," He spoke up, and flashed a half smile at her. She glanced up at the sign above the door. He was right.

"ah… excuse me," Kairi replied. She couldn't think of anything else to say.

"SORA!" Came the cry of a girl some feet behind, "Get over here! I'm ordering more drinks!" He looked around Kairi, and Kairi turned unconsciously with him to the source of the voice. A girl in a red dress, with rather expensive, or at least glitzy looking jewelry hanging around her neck and dangling from her ears.

Sora nodded in her direction smiling bashfully, then shifted his eyes quickly back to Kairi, his smile falling ever so slightly, he furrowed his brows and bit his bottom lip for a moment, then smiled again and walked around her to the girl who had been calling, presumably, his one of his patronesses.

Kairi turned on her heel, feeling a little humiliated and very sorry for herself. She walked the three feet to the next door, scrutinized the sign, and finally found the ladies bathroom.

* * *

The first rays of morning sunlight were not yet visible as Kairi called a cab. She knew that they must be coming up soon. She stood with her arms crossed on the sidewalk, very much alone. The crowds of people who had passed by earlier in the evening had dispersed now. Everyone had gone home, to bed, to sleep. Everyone but Kairi, it seemed. She shook her head. Alone. She should have figured.

The cab pulled up to the side of the road. She strode towards it, hearing the sound of her heals clicking on the cement somehow grounded her despite her own exhaustion. Selphie had taken off, of course. She remembered their conversation some minutes ago. They had stood in the coatroom, and Selphie had been talking at her, not to her.

"I knew it, Kairi! I just knew it would do the trick, bringing you around! You know, it just gives me a sense of… of… what's the word? Legitimacy? Maybe? Well now he knows I'm not some lunatic off the street! I have friends, and now that he knows that he _trusts_ me."

"Lunatics have friends, sometimes, don't they?" Kairi asked. Selphie ignored her.

"This is it, Kairi, this is the _next step_ in our relationship!"

"_Relationship_?" Kairi asked, and was ignored yet again.

"So I'm going to hang around here for a little while, and then we're going to go back to his place and…" She sighed deeply, her eyes pointed up and her lips stretched into a smile. She was rendered speechless at last.

"Selphie, are you sure that this is a good decision?"

"Kairi, Kairi, Kairi, when you know true love, you'll understand my choices. Your time will come too!" Selphie reached over and patted Kairi on the shoulder, a consolation. Kairi, repulsed, prayed she would never understand. She was silent. Selphie gave her one last pat and then trotted out of the room. Kairi was alone.

She climbed into the cab, speaking out her address in the process. When she was seated, she reached to close the door, but there was someone in the way, she noted with a good deal of surprise.

"Uhm, this cab is taken," She said, squinting to get a better look at the stranger in the darkness. In fact, it was not one stranger, but two. One, the tall and silver haired host, whom she recognized as Riku, the one that never speaks, was supporting the weight of another, the man with brown hair from the bathroom. Kairi couldn't remember his name. Riku cleared his throat.

"Hey, my friend Sora wants to get home quick, so," He tossed her a few bills, "Here's the fare, if you'll just make sure he gets there..." Kairi stared at Riku, not sure what was more ridiculous, that he had just spoken, or the request he was making.

"You talk?"

"Look, I really don't have all day…"

"No, you look, this is my cab, and I'm in a hurry too, so…"

"Seriously? _You're_ getting paid to spend time with _him_," Riku shook his head, and proceeded to help his friend into the cab. Kairi got out of the way, not wanting to be crushed under his weight. He was almost limp next to her, leaning this way and that, swaying back and forth in his attempts to sit upright, settling eventually on leaning his head back against the seat, his eyes closing.

"What! He's clearly drunk! You can't be serious? What if he throws up on me?"

"I'm not going to throw up on anyone," Sora mumbled, with shocking clarity. Kairi stared from Sora to Riku, who was now throwing Sora's bag into the cab.

Riku told the cab driver Sora's address and shut the door. The cab pulled away. Kairi looked at Sora, whose spikes were now drifting slowly downwards, partially covering his closed eyes. The cab was silent. Kairi ran her hands down her legs, to straighten out her dress. The windows were a blur. She hated this. A thousand thoughts ran through her mind. The dangers of her situation, the nerve of that Riku to put her in it, the nerve of Selphie to abandon her. It was all infuriating. She looked at Sora again. He didn't seem like he was going to assault her. There was that, at least.

She should have thought to get out of the cab. She wondered at her own self-righteousness and how it got her into situations like this. If she had merely surrendered her cab, if she had just gotten out when this drunk was forced in she could have avoided all of this. Her stomach burned, a mixture of alcohol and anxiety. If only she could have changed Selphie's mind. If only Selphie hadn't been so silly.

They were silent the whole way back, with Sora leaning back as if asleep the whole time. Kairi watched him nervously, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. His pallor was a putrid green. He mostly looked pathetic.

The cab came to a stop in a neighborhood not too far from her own. She recognized it with a great deal of relief. The udon place that she frequented was right around the corner.

Feeling the lack of motion of the cab, Sora's eyes opened groggily, and he climbed out, struggling a little.

Kairi sighed, watching him. She felt a wave of pity. She looked out of the window. It was a very safe area. She instructed the cab driver to wait.

"I'll get your bag," She said to him calmly.

"That's not really…"

"I told your friend that I would see you home safely… so…" grabbing his bag, and vaguely registering that it was surprisingly heavy, she got out of the cab.

He was swaying on his feet. Kairi took him by the arm and shook her head at the ridiculousness of the situation. They walked into the building, and she helped him into the elevator.

"What floor?" She asked.

"Three."

She pushed the button, the doors closed with a ding and he nearly lost his balance with the upward motion of it.

"Where are your keys?" She asked after the elevator had reached its destination and they stepped out onto the floor.

"Bag." After some rummaging she located them. He led her to his door, and she followed unlocking it for him. She threw the key back into his bag.

"You should drink some water and…" She was cut off.

"Look, this… can't really happen…" He said. Kairi stared at the boy again, taking in the serious look in his unfocused eyes.

"What can't happen?" She asked him, in the calm voice she reserved for children and drunks.

"Us, here, tonight… Look, I…" His meaning dawned on her.

"Who do you take me to be?" She asked.

"No one…"

She shook her head at him, and shoved his bag into his unsuspecting hands. He stumbled backwards from the force of it as she turned and exited, taking the stairs.


	2. For Ten Thousand Yen

Chapter Two

For Ten Thousand Yen

Sometimes you have to do things that you don't like. Kairi knew this all too well. Of course, that didn't make her like it.

The library lights were too bright that morning as Kairi sat at a table with her books propped up in front of her, her eyes were on the pages, scanning back and forth furiously, her mind absorbing a word every paragraph or so. It was frustrating. There was something distracting her. Or rather, someone.

Selphie sat across from her. A grin was spread across her tiny features as she spoke, on and on and on. Even though Kairi had an exam the following day, she did not have the heart to tell her friend to be quiet when she was speaking so passionately. Then again, Selphie had a strange tendency to be passionate about everything.

"So, you pretty much know the story up until there, I think. You know, I was telling him about my new desk chair and he just whispered in my ear _I have a new chair at home. I'd love to show it to you_. Oh Kairi, I just couldn't turn him down. Of course, I always knew that there was the possibility of _more_…" Selphie paused for a second and Kairi took the time to interject.

"Well you seemed pretty sure of more last Friday night, when you _abandoned_ me." She didn't look up, her eyes now examining a graph on the left page of her book, wondering at the same time about the graph-maker's color choices and her friend's life choices.

"Abandoned? It's not like you were on the moon, Kairi. Honestly, you can be so self-centered sometimes. Not in a bad way, though, it's _endearing_. But back to my night, I know you really want to know the details,"

"Uh."

"So, we got into his car. He has a car, Kairi! Imagine that. And we drove to his place. It was just so nice. He was such a gentleman, just his same old self, you know? I was, like, worried that he would change once we got out of the club and I wasn't… you know… paying him or anything. But he was exactly the same. It was so refreshing! I just felt then and there that I'd picked a winner. He's the most genuine host at Club Midori, I just know it,"

"You know, he was about to get lucky, so you can't say that for sure…" Kairi was cut off.

"Oh Kairi, don't be naïve," Kairi stared pointedly at her friend for a moment, Selphie didn't seem to notice, "A woman can always tell when a man is being honest. You know, they say that the Hosts are all putting on personas, but I know that Tidus isn't. I just _know_." Kairi did not say anything to this and resisted the urge to shake her head. Selphie didn't notice this internal battle and continued.

"So we got to his apartment, it was so nice Kairi!" Selphie then launched into a description of lamps, carpets, color schemes, and, of course, chairs. Kairi nodded every now and then. She didn't really care to hear about the life of splendor lived by deceptive men like Tidus, who, as far as she could see, had used her friend for sex and money. It was a win-win scenario. But what had Selphie gained? Kairi didn't know.

"Anyway, the chair was nice, it was bright red. It was really bold, you know. And I told him that… so anyway, one thing led to another; do you know what I mean? Anyway before I knew it, we were on the chair and I was straddling him and he was unzipping my dress and…"

"Selphie, you don't have to tell me everything, _really_," Kairi said quickly. Selphie just laughed.

"Oh Kairi! Someday it will be your turn, _really_," Selphie said, and Kairi stared at her, open mouthed, for a moment.

"Selphie, do you really think it was a good idea to, well, sleep with him. You don't know where he's been, or _with whom_," Kairi said, she closed her textbook now. It was a lost cause at this point anyway. Selphie looked at her strangely, like she was an alien that had just crawled out of a space ship that had crash-landed in the library. As if Kairi's words had been the outlandish ones. As if sanity was not quite within Kairi's reach.

"Well, you weren't there, so…"

"No, I wasn't in his apartment with you. I certainly hope I wasn't."

"Just the way he looked at me Kairi, the way he talks to me. The way he touched me. It was like I was the only woman on earth. Or the only one that mattered. He was just so… good and so… attentive…" Selphie trailed off, words escaping her.

"So are you going to… you know. meet up again sometime?" Kairi asked.

"I'm going back to the club next weekend!" Selphie said. Kairi had hoped she would say they would meet outside of the club. An impossible dream.

"Well, I'm glad you had a nice night. I really am…" Kairi said honestly, because she was, after all, Selphie's friend and Selphie wasn't just beaming, her happiness was rolling off of her in waves. Like a child who had been given that special toy that they'd seen in the shop windows, the one they _really_ wanted. "But, I don't think I'm ever going back to that club" This statement was lost on Selphie.

"Thank you, Kairi! I knew you'd support us. You know what, I think we're really going to make it." Kairi had nothing to say to this. In fact she couldn't quite form the words to debunk her friend's statement. She could think of plenty, but they wouldn't leave her mouth. Something in Selphie's smile stopped them. "How was your night?"

"My night?" Kairi laughed, and then lied, mostly, "Uneventful. That Riku guy spoke to me though, the so-called silent one" Now it was Selphie's turn to laugh, and laugh she did, tilting her head back in her chair.

"Oh Kairi! You're so naive! Of course he didn't!"

"Good job tonight overall. Axel, tone down the bad boy attitude a bit. Just because girls like it when you _smash_ things doesn't mean that they're going to pay for it. I guess that's it. I'll see you all here at ten o'clock tonight" Cloud finished speaking and stared at the crowd around him. The hosts of Club Midori were all cramped together into the red break room. Some sitting, some standing, some sprawled on the floor, and most in a variable stage of intoxication. Commissions did not come easily, of course.

"I guess that's achievable," said Axel. He was a host with bright red hair, a permanent smirk, and long legs. He was sitting on one end of the couch, his head leaned back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Next to him was a blond host, who was holding on to his hand casually.

"I mean it, Axel. And when you're lighting their cigarettes, just light their cigarettes, not the table cloth or the menu or…"

"But you've got to admit those girls went wild for it!" The blond host spoke up, and the redhead, Axel, looked over at him with an affectionate smirk.

"That they do, but it's not good for profits and there are _lines_ that we draw when we're with our clients," Cloud stated, then nodded to the group, all slumped around the room and ready to pass out, "Alright, that's it. Have a good morning." As soon as Cloud was out of the room, Riku, who had been silent the entire night, decided to speak up.

"Speaking of lines, I heard that you crossed a few last Friday night, Tidus," He smirked to Tidus who was leaning against the red wall with a practiced nonchalance.

"Don't get me started on that disaster," He said and shook his head woefully.

"There you have it ladies and gentlemen, the only man to ever get laid and complain about it!" Axel said, then tilted his head back and laughed at his own joke.

"Maybe he wasn't doing it right?" Roxas chimed in.

"Come one guys! Give me a break, okay. She was really clingy and… lovey-dovey. Which is great when we're here. Or it would be if she would actually order some expensive drinks… the sex itself wasn't bad. But she tried to get a love confession out of me right before…" Tidus trialed off and sighed.

"And did you do it?" Sora asked from the corner, where he sat on the floor with a textbook open in his lap.

"Have you been paying attention? Of course we did it," Tidus retorted.

"I mean did you confess your_ undying love_, idiot," Sora shook his head and looked back down at his textbook.

"Of course not! I'm not that pathetic!"

In All Honesty

"Do you love me Tidus?"

They were in his bed now, the room was dark but for the lights from the street that shone through the window. He had carried her there. She was lighter than he expected.

"Mmmm, I love that your legs are wrapped around me. And I love that you're _here_…" He trailed off. His mind was a haze, it was difficult to form coherent thoughts. She looked at him funny, her head tilted to the side.

"But, do you love me, Tidus?" He looked down at her, felt all those spots where their skin was touching, and reached into the void of his mind to remember exactly what love was and what it had to do with his situation. Then the words came out of his mouth.

"Sure. Sure."

The apartment was small but it seemed large on this day. Sora stepped through the doorway and kicked off his shoes haphazardly. He stepped up onto the wooden floors in his socks and trotted across the living room. He ignored the dishes in the sink and stack of letters on the coffee table, or tried to.

He reached his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind him. His bag fell to the floor and he took the three steps over to his bed and fell on it dramatically, face down. There he remained for a blissful ten minutes, and then he dragged himself up and out of bed.

His shower was quick, but thorough. He stared at the blue walls of the bathroom in a haze. The world was still funny, and a little unreal. The price of earning commissions. They order drinks, you get commissions. But when they order, you have to drink with them. That was how it worked. This night had not been too bad, consumption wise. He'd made it to the bathroom a few times, purged himself, so to speak, to keep up with the new ladies coming in. No fun, but necessary to avoid alcohol poisoning.

He got out of the shower, and rubbed the fog off the mirror before taking a moment to marvel at the difference a little water made to the spikyness of his hair. It was considerably droopier, some of it was falling into his eyes.

He got dressed, putting on some jeans, a tee shirt, and his glasses. Then he brushed his teeth and shaved. It was strange. When he looked in the mirror now, he was oddly normal. No hair products, no fancy clothes, glasses instead of contacts. Just his usual self.

In his life, his _normal_ life, he had been recognized as a host outside of club Midori just twice. He'd denied it both times. And it had worked. It was the glasses, he thought.

Looking at his watch, he realized that he was already running late, as usual. Which meant he would have to skip breakfast, as usual. He sighed to himself and as he grabbed his bag again, walked out of his room, across the living room, put on his shoes, and exited.

"I'm off..."

Sora was hungry. So hungry. The professor droned on. String theory was interesting. Fascinating even. But not when taught by Professor Ansem. This professor, Sora decided, could be talking about unicorns coming out of his ass, and make it excruciatingly dull. Some people just couldn't tell a story.

Physics was a story. It was more than a story, even. It was an art. The methods, the theories, the words, the Greek equations. Even more than that, it was the study of the crazy universe he lived in. The universe was a mysterious place. Physics told the story of its complexities, simply and elegantly. He loved it. He was in love with it.

There was no story when this Professor Ansem spoke. There were only dry and dull facts. Nothing more than experiments and results. Physics could be so much more.

Of course, Sora wasn't thinking quite so deeply on the subject on this particular day. He was mostly trying to stay awake and pay attention, which were both incredibly difficult things to do considering he had been working the night before, he was starving, and was beginning to feel the nagging effects of a hangover.

But this was a typical day in his life. His job came with a price, as all jobs do.

It had been an odd few days at work, admittedly. Cloud, the head of the host club and an ex-host himself did not exactly approve of hosts sleeping with their clients, for fun or for money. It had a tendency to complicate things. Of course, this didn't stop it from happening every once in a while. Tidus had crossed that lovely little line. Not that Sora was particularly concerned with the ins and outs of Tidus's sex life, but it was something nice and trivial to think about. Sometimes he just needed to think about the trivial. It kept him sane.

His head was leaning slowly towards the desk. Slowly, slowly, slowly drifting nearer and nearer. His eyes were open, but they weren't seeing much. They didn't see Professor Ansem approaching.

"Hm," There was a knock on the desk, and professor Ansem was standing right above him, in all of his boring glory. His expression was rather cross, "You'll see me after class."

Sora was too tired and hungry to be humiliated. Though, he knew in the back of his mind that, had he been a little more awake or a little more nourished, he would have felt mortified.

"Yes, sir," He gritted his teeth and nodded his head, sitting back up and picking up his pencil. Rapid and detailed note taking was one method of staying awake, and that's what he did for the remainder of the class.

Class was over after an eternity. Sora shook out his hand, which was now thoroughly cramped. He had gripped the pencil too tight. It happened sometimes. He stood up and gathered his things slowly, waiting for all of the other students to leave before he approached his professor. The last thing he wanted was to be reprimanded in front of them. They took their time of course. He spent a few awkward seconds fumbling with the buttons on his bag. Then they were gone, chatting on their way out, and he walked up to his professor.

"Professor?" Sora asked. Of course, he knew why he had been called up. Feigning ignorance, somehow, felt better than a groveling preemptive apology. He was too tired for ass kissing.

"Mr. Yamada, are you aware that this is the third time that you have fallen asleep in my class this semester?" Professor Ansem's face was grave and severe. The kind of look that people wear at a funeral. In the briefest of moments Sora wondered if this was his funeral, then wondered at his own sanity, and finally settled on the idea that that was just the way that professor Ansem looked all the time.

"Erm, I suppose. I'm very sorry, professor. It won't happen again, it really won't," Sora said, and bowed his head down in apology. His professor was not very impressed.

"Are you serious about this class, Mr. Yamada, because I don't think that you are," Professor Ansem said. His expression had not changed.

"I am. Really. Really. I'm very serious about this class, it's a graduation requirement and I really would love to work in this field some da…."

"You should know that if you fall asleep in here again, you're going to be dropped from the class," Professor Ansem said.

"Yes, sir." The conversation was over before it started. What excuse could he have made, anyway?

The school library was quiet, but for the occasional student conversation. Sora wasn't paying much attention to it. He was concentrating on the bag in his hand, labeled with the logo of his university's café. In it were several salmon flavored rice balls, a pre-packaged cake, and a bottle of green tea. He needed to find a quiet place in the library to sit, alone, where he wouldn't be caught eating. The café had been full and loud.

Loud was not something that he particularly needed at this moment and he had had long since filled his people quota for the day. Misanthropic as it may be.

He was in the political science section now. His destination: classics. The place he was sure he could be alone. Who majored in classics, anyway? Just one more corner now, he knew.

The distance between Sora and aforementioned corner disappeared, and he rounded it, his stomach churning with hunger and a hint of nausea. He felt relief with the knowledge that he would be able to eat in a few seconds, that he would find the small table situated in the middle of the classics section blissfully empty.

His relief was cut off abruptly. There had been someone taking the same corner as him in the opposite direction. They had run right in to each other, needless to say.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She said, rather flustered, her books had tumbled to the ground, all a mess. He stumbled back and got a good look at her. She was pretty. Strikingly so, with red hair. Bright, auburn, red. It was so familiar in those bright library lights. He wondered at it for a millisecond and then remembered.

It was her. It came to him in a moment of panic. The one he had ridden in the cab with. He wasn't perfectly sure why he had been in that cab. Or, he should say, why she had been in that cab. Riku playing a joke on him, perhaps?

She had reacted as most women would when they are alone with the second most popular host in the city's second most popular host club. She tried to sleep with him, if he remembered correctly. And he knew that he did remember correctly. He was glad that she had enough sense to leave when he told her to.

And now, here she was, in the classics section of _his_ university. There was no way she was a classics major. _Nobody_ was a classics major. She was stalking him; there was no other answer. But why? And how? He had had a few chance meetings with his clients outside of work. And those had always blown over pretty quickly…

One Such Example

"Hey… hey! Wait a minute! You know who you look like?" She was tall with bleached blond hair and she purred the words, high pitched to Sora when she passed him in the train station.

"Uhm me?"

"Yeah, you! Do you know who you look like?"

"Myself?"

"No silly! You look like this one host, Sora, from club Midori. You know the one, right? Hey… you're not him are you?" Her jaw opened just a bit.

"Me? A host?" He laughed, coolly, he knew he would fool her, and held up the physics book that he just so happened to be holding, "I'm a physics student. But if you'd like, I can give you my autograph for ten thousand yen."

She walked away without another word. No one wanted a physics student's autograph. Mission accomplished.

He decided that he would try the same method, it had worked before and perhaps she would be discouraged from stalking him any further if she believed that he wasn't who he actually was.

She had been looking down at her books, which had been spread across the floor between the two shelves. He still hadn't said a word to her apology. She looked up at him, now, to see who she had run in to and her polite smile fell off her teeth.

"It's you!" She spoke suddenly.

"Me?" He laughed, "Usually I am me, I think."

"You're the host that Riku guy stuck in _my_ cab," She said, and she was frowning now.

"Me," He laughed again, "No, no, no," He pulled out his physics book from the bag that was dangled over his shoulder and flashed quite close to her face. She swatted it away.

"Why are you doing that?" She huffed angrily. He was a bit taken aback, but stuck to the plan nonetheless.

"Me? A host? In your cab? Hah! I'm just a physics student. But… if you'd like I'll sell you my autograph for ten thousan…"

"Nice try. I recognize your bag… and your face," she said, "It's hard to forget the look of someone who almost puked on you."

"Almost puked? I didn't almost puke on you! I've never puked on _anyone_,"

"But _almost_. So you are that guy… hmmm Sora, was it? Sora the cab stealing, lying…"

"Woah! I never, ever said I would sleep with you." He said defensively.

"Sleep with me? I never wanted to sleep with you." She huffed, "I meant the whole physics thing. You know, it's really low to try to trap girls into the whole host club thing at a university. I might just tell the administration…"

"I'm really a physics student," he said. And she stared at him for a moment, frown still etched across her lips, "I've got the notebooks and everything." He reached into his bag, pulled out the aforementioned notebooks and shoved them in her face like he had the textbook.

"Fine. You're a physics student." She said bitingly and bent down to pick up her fallen books. Sora glanced at them, they were mostly political science journals. Political Science was right next to the classics section.

"Do you go here?" He asked now. Perhaps he had been wrong. Probably not though.

"Why else would I be here?"

"Just wondering if you were… following me." If he could have taken a picture of the look on her face at that moment, it would have fit perfectly in the dictionary right next to the word _enraged_. Stalkers, Sora decided, especially love sick stalkers, didn't get that angry at their object of affection. He felt relief at her anger, "Nevermind."

She stormed away, just as she had done on Friday night in the hallway of his apartment. He didn't care much though. He was too hungry.

a/n Hope you liked it! Feel free to leave a review. I love constructive criticism.


	3. The Last Word

Chapter Three

The Last Word

Kairi loved her cell phone. A little bit too much, maybe. Such was the curse of the modern age. She loved her apps, her pictures, and her easy web browsing. She loved being able too look up the national bird of any country at any given time. In fact, she had a national bird application. She loved her cell phone, but not at three in the morning. She didn't love anything at three in the morning.

Nonetheless, her cell phone was ringing. Her phone didn't care that it was three in the morning. It didn't care that she had only been asleep for three short hours. And it certainly didn't care about the distress that the incoming call would cause poor Kairi.

Kairi rolled over onto her side and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. She picked up her phone, left carefully next to her bed. Incoming call, it said, from Selphie. She hit the green answer button and held the phone to her ear.

"Hello?" She rasped, sleepy but unfortunately awake. She waited for the chirpy tone of Selphie. It never came.

"Is this, um, Kairi?" It was a man's voice that spoke through her phone. A man using Selphie's phone. A man's voice that she almost vaguely recognized.

"Yes… Who is this?" She asked, "Is Selphie alright?" A wave of sudden panic hit her now and she unconsciously sat up straight in her bed, her heart thudding in her chest.

"That's why we're calling…" There was a pause and Kairi felt like she was suffocating, there was no way she was Selphie's emergency contact, right? "Your friend is causing a bit of trouble here."

"Here? Where's here?" Kairi asked, and knew the answer before she heard the male voice respond.

"Club Midori, sorry. We'd like someone to come and pick her up. We would prefer not to have to call the authorities…" Kairi rubbed her eyes again. The fear that had been building in her chest was giving way to relief.

"Authorities? Oh, no, that won't be necessary at all. I'll get there as soon as I can." She hung up before he could change his mind and bolted out of bed. She dizzily got dressed in the dark of her room.

* * *

Just a little earlier…

_What did she say her name was_… _Olivia maybe?_ Riku wondered. She had mentioned it in passing when she first sat down at the table with him about thirty minutes ago. She had since made it her life mission to get a word out of him. _Like that's going to happen_, he thought.

She was a seven, perhaps, on the coveted hotness scale of one to ten, but only when you really looked at her. She was pretty, no doubt, but forgettable. _If I saw her on the street tomorrow, I wouldn't recognize her_. There was something about her features that was average. _A face you would see in a textbook or maybe a stock photo_.

Riku was smoking now. He was always smoking. He wondered for a moment if it would be cigarettes or alcohol that got him in the end. _ No, it will probably be a woman._ He smirked at this thought, and the girl Opal, or something, opened her mouth like a big old fish.

"Why are you smiling?" Octavia asked him, and batted her long fake eyelashes. Riku shrugged noncommittally and flipped his hair back. They loved it when he did that. It made them crazy. Ophelia was no exception. Her lips spread apart into a toothy grin. Her teeth were above average, at least, very white and straight. She pulled a cigarette out of the pack on the table.

"Light it for me, would you?" Olga put cigarette between her lips and he obliged her, leaning in a little closer than necessary, looking into her eyes. He leaned back when he was done and watched as she took a drag.

"So, what was your childhood like?" She asked after she had exhaled. The endless barrage of questions was starting up again. "Did you go to university?" She stared at him expectantly.

There were three kinds of women that Riku tended to get. First, the kind that think can "cure" silence. Second, the ones that love the sound of their own voices— and thought he would too. Third, the girls who just want to sit across from a hot piece of ass while they drown themselves in alcohol and complained about how tough it is to be a modern woman.

Oprah was the first category…

"I know!" She exclaimed suddenly. _Watch out world, she's having a thought_. Onette grabbed his hand suddenly and held it so that his palm was facing up.

"One poke for yes," Olena said and poked him once on the palm of the hand, "And two for no," she poked him twice.

_She just wants me to touch her. _It would have been more effective to write messages back and forth. That was how he communicated with his regulars. Nonetheless, he was willing to oblige. A good host always was.

He took Opal's hand in his and massaged it slowly, rubbing circles, looked up to meet her eyes and grinned slowly, seductively.

"Are you from Osaka?" She asked him. He stopped his hand massage and poked her twice.

"Do you like working…" She was cut off.

"Riku. I need your help for a minute." Sora was standing behind him, his eyes darting nervously to one of the private rooms. _Isn't he supposed to be on break?_

Riku nodded his head, gave Ompa-lumpa's hand an apologetic squeeze, and got up to follow Sora. When they were a good distance away from the center of the main room, Sora leaned in and began to speak quickly and quietly.

"We've been asked to escort a client out. She's in the blue room with Tidus…" Sora looked around, to make sure that no one was listening, "I think she's the one he's always whining about."

Riku nodded. Cloud, the owner of the club, had left an hour ago. Something had come up with his girlfriend. The guy was whipped, if you asked Riku, and girls— Cloud's included, were fucking crazy about all kinds of stupid things. _Who the fuck has heard of a quarter year anniversary?_ At any rate, it fell to him and Sora to rescue Tidus from whatever situation he had gotten himself into.

They crossed the main floor to the blue room. Sora opened the door carefully and peered in. If he was relieved, he didn't show it.

There was no blood and there was no catastrophic mess, which, as far as Riku was concerned, would be the only reasons to ask to have a client escorted out. The girl, Miss Tiny Tits, as the hosts liked to call her, seemed to be neither violent nor rowdy. She was sitting on the couch in the corner with her legs crossed neatly. _She thinks she's the queen of fucking England_. When they entered, she looked up with a glimmer of hope that died as quickly as it appeared when she realized that they were not Tidus.

_I don't get that reaction too often._

"Miss Tilmitt?" Sora asked, as he stepped into the room, "We're going to have to ask that you leave the premises." The girl looked like she was going to cry. Riku almost felt bad for her.

"Look, this is a misunderstanding…" She started to say. Riku doubted that, and so did Sora.

"Please follow us," Sora said. Riku had to admire his ability to get right to it. There was a lot that he admired about Sora, to be honest. Sora was the most admirable son-of-a-bitch that he'd ever met— and the best friend he had.

The girl stood up without further protest and followed them through the club. She must have been glad, Riku figured, to be escorted out without drawing attention to herself.

Riku and Sora dropped her off at the exit and sent her on her way, glad to be done with it. They made it to the main room before they heard someone charging behind them. Riku turned on his heels, as did Sora.

Poor Sora made the mistake of trying to stop her. Miss Tiny Tits wouldn't have it. When he held out his arms to bar her path, her knee jerked up violently. It didn't miss its target. Riku shivered just watching. She managed to get around Sora as he fell to the ground in pain and made a dash for the back room, and presumably Tidus.

All _this_ for Tidus. What she saw in him, Riku would never know.

Riku crouched down faced away from the main room. All eyes were them and he couldn't afford to let one of their lovely guests see his lips moving. Appearances and all.

"You okay?" He asked. When Sora did not respond for a moment, he didn't blame him. Riku grabbed his arm, and helped him up and over to a nearby chair and then dashed to the back room.

* * *

The world outside of the cab window was a blur of lights. Kairi's eyes were unfocused, but she was awake and alert. Her mind was preoccupied with worry, mostly, and just a hint of curiosity. What could Selphie have done to get kicked out of an institution like Club Midori?

The cab slowed, and the blur of lights sharpened into the green sign marking the host club. She dug through her wallet and paid the cab driver with a polite smile. It was all she could do to ignore the strange stare he was giving her. How desperate and lonely he must have thought her, to wake up at three in the morning and seek out the attention of a host. Her face grew hot at the thought and she climbed out of the cab with surprising speed.

The street was not as crowded as it had been when she had last visited Club Midori, but she suspected that had something to do with the hour. Kairi crossed the sidewalk briskly to the entrance of the host club. She paused at the door and took a deep breath. The world was oddly quiet for a moment, with only the odd car rushing by every few minutes. When she could delay no longer, she took the plunge and pulled open the door to the host club.

The club was exactly as it had been the previous Friday night. Blue walls, dimly lit, and packed with women wearing way too much make up.

"Welcome to Club Midori! How may I assist you?" A host, who had apparently been stationed as the club greeter asked her. He was young and smartly dressed, with big bright eyes and unsurprisingly bleached hair. He looked over her with an unreadable expression. She had thrown on the first things she could pull from her closet— jeans, a tee shirt, a pair of sneakers. Her hair was up in a rather unflattering ponytail.

"I'm here to pick up my friend… Sel…." She was cut off.

"Oh, _her_," He walked around his podium, "Follow me." He motioned with his arm as he said it and turned to lead her through the club.

She followed him into the smoky main room with the bar, straight across, past the restrooms, and through a door that led to a rather narrow hallway.

"Wait here, I'm going to get our manager" The host instructed, and turned off into a room at the end of the hallway.

"What?" Kairi asked, looking around nervously. She sighed, and leaned against the wall, alone.

The door from the main room opened, and the previously muted sound of music spilled in through it, along with a host.

"_You_? _You're_ not the manager, are you?" She spat out before she could stop herself. In had walked none other than the host who had trampled her in the library a few days back. He was dressed the part, this time, with his hair spiked up, a collared shirt and blazer. Undeniably good looking, if a bit overdone. He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

"Not the last time I checked," He said, and looked up and down at her clothing, clearly noting that she was underdressed compared to the other patronesses of Club Midori. He cleared his throat, "This hallway is for Club Midori employees only."

"I'm waiting out here for your manager," She said and bit her lip, "I've come to get my friend…" He actually had the audacity to laugh at that. He tilted his head back as he did so. She wondered if he was drunk for a moment, "Is there a problem?"

He walked up to her, still smiling a little and shook his head.

"No problem at all. Not with you. But just in case you didn't already know, your friend is fucking crazy," He didn't laugh as he said this. He just shook his head.

"She is not!" Kairi retorted, a little more impassioned than she had originally intended, her face turning red.

"Don't bother with that bullshit," he said and he looked her up and down again before walking right by her and down the hallway.

"Can you at least get the manager!" She demanded. He turned, and shrugged.

* * *

Selphie was sitting on a bright red couch, a perfect picture of innocence. Her legs were crossed neatly, her hands were folded in her lap over her sparkling blue dress and her shoulders were straight. She looked so very prim and proper, that it would not have surprised Kairi at all had she been holding a cup of tea and sitting next to the queen of England. But she wasn't. She was alone in that red room, on the red couch. The door had been shut.

Riku, the so-called silent host had led her in. Their manager, having apparently gone home early that day, the chain of command dictated that the head hosts take over. It was four in the morning.

"Take a seat," Riku said. If Selphie was surprised that he spoke, she didn't show it. She sat as still as Kairi had ever seen her, her lips were drawn tight and a look of stubborn determination was set across her face.

"Thank you," Kairi mumbled, and she sat next to her friend. Riku took the chair opposite them.

"I'm very glad that we didn't have to call the authorities," He started. Kairi nodded her head and looked from the host to her friend and back again.

"That was very kind of you," Kairi said, "But, I'm sorry, I'm still not sure what happened exactly…."

"Right!" Riku grinned politely, and looked at Selphie, "I'll allow Miss Tilmitt explain, if she would prefer," He said. Selphie smiled politely.

"I couldn't be separated from True Love," Selphie said and spoke no more.

* * *

You Can't Separate True Love

"I think it's time we talked a little bit about us…" Selphie spoke sing-song. She was seated next to Tidus in their usual private alcove, her hand rested precariously on his thigh. Tidus was looking away, staring into space, as he smoked his cigarette in silence. Contemplating his feelings for her, Selphie was sure. When he didn't respond after a moment, she lightly slapped his leg to get his attention, "Tidus. I'm serious!"

"How about a glass of champagne?" He asked her. She shook her head.

"I've had enough to drink tonight already. I want to talk about us now."

"Us…"

"I know that we've come a long way. I mean, our relationship is hardly standard given your profession and everything, but I know that we can do it. I mean, we're in love… we're meant to be together, don't you think? I just know we are. What I'm trying to say is that I think we should both commit to something more long term…"

"Selphie, you know I can't do that… we're not…" She cut him off.

"I don't care about your job! You can still be a host, because I know that all of this isn't _real_," She trailed off.

"But we aren…" She cut him off again.

"But _we_ are," She beamed at him and her hand tightened ever so slightly around his thigh.

"You have to let me finish, dear," Tidus sounded serious now, grave. He was pouting, Selphie noticed, and she thought that was rather uncharacteristic of him. He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling before taking a deep breath, "We aren't, Selphie. We can't be. It's not going to happen, I'm sorry. We have to keep things the way they are," He took a drag on his cigarette, she grabbed it from his hand and put it out.

"It's not about the money for me," Selphie blurted out.

"I never said anything about…"

"I know that you make a good living and I know that you have come to love your lifestyle, but if you would feel like you were being unfaithful to me by staying at your job, I can support you… I can… nothing can separate true love" This time he cut her off.

"Selphie, there's nothing to separate…" he said, and a wild look came over her. She shook her head wildly, her brown hair danced about her shoulders in a flurry.

"You're lying," She said suddenly and the words sounded feral as they came out of her lips. Tidus did not have time to think on that, because she was on him in half a second.

Her lips crushed against his, her hands wrapped around his neck and her chest pressed into his. He pushed her away lightly.

"I'm not. Stop."

"You're trying to protect me, you stop," And she was on him again, this time her kiss more forceful. He pushed her away again.

"I think it's time you went home," He said now. Tears were welling up in her eyes and she shook her head.

"No, No, I'm not going home. Not without you," She said, "You can't separate true love." She manipulated herself now so that she was straddling him, how she did it, even she wasn't sure. Before she could kiss him , he shoved her off of him, stood up, and left the private room.

Three minutes later she was escorted from the premises.

* * *

"After we escorted her out, she charged back in. She attacked one of our hosts when he tried to direct her out, and then attempted to sexually assault Tidus," Riku paused for a moment and shook his head, "You can understand why we're going to have to ask that she doesn't return to the club."

"Yes," Kairi said. She could think of nothing else to say. She was mortified beyond words. Selphie, it seemed, was trying to preserve her last shreds of dignity by remaining silent. She had not said a word after her True Love comment. That was for the better, Kairi thought. Though it must have been killing her, Selphie always wanted to have the last word.

"Do we have an understanding Ms. Tilmitt?" Riku directed the question at Selphie, and looked at her gravely. Selphie nodded her head weakly.

"We absolutely do," Kairi chimed in.

"Good."

"We'll be going now," Kairi said and stood up from the couch and bowed deeply to Riku and walked out of the room, Selphie following behind her.

They walked down the hallway and out the door into the main room of the host club. The number of patronesses had dwindled down significantly, but the hosts all stared as they walked by. To the far right was the host from the cab and the library. He was seated with one of the few remaining patronesses, and for the briefest of moments her eyes met his. She wondered if she hated him. She thought she did.

Before she could think, his attention flew away from her, to the woman at his side who was gawking at Selphie and laughing scandalously.

* * *

The ride home was silent. Selphie seemed to have nothing to add to the story, made no move to defend herself. Kairi's humiliation had slowly but surely morphed into a growing anger. She wondered at the words of that stupid host, that her friend was "fucking crazy." The more she thought about it, the more she began to realize that he was completely right. She searched herself for words, to explain herself to Selphie, to tell her friend that what had occurred at the club that night was not right, that, had it happened somewhere else, she could have been arrested. She didn't know where to begin, or if it was even her place to begin a conversation like that. But who else was there to say it? Of course, there was also the little matter that Selphie wouldn't listen to anything she, or anyone else said.

She knew it would be better to keep quiet. Kairi told herself that the entire way back. She bit her bottom lip in concentration, as the anger seethed inside of her. Anger that she had been forced out of bed and humiliated because her friend was delusional.

Kairi waited until they were out of the cab. They lived about a block away from each other and Kairi had instructed the driver to drop them off in the middle. Kairi climbed out first, easily in her jeans and sneakers, and Selphie had tittered out in her dainty heels with much effort. As the cab pulled away, Kairi spoke.

"Selphie, what were you thinking?" Kairi looked at her friend, who refused to meet her eye. Selphie's eyes were everywhere else, darting around the quiet street.

"I had to Kairi, you can't seper…."

"No." Kairi shook her head at this, she would not hear it again, she refused.

"I did what I had to, you would have done the same if you were in my situation. Love makes you do crazy things, you'll understand someday," Selphie looked at her as she said the last part and Kairi shook her head.

"Selphie, you aren't in love. You paid for Tidus. That's not love, and what you did tonight seems a lot like obsession."

"You've never been in love, so how could you possibly judge me," Selphie hissed now. Kairi took a step back from her friend, afraid for the smallest second that she would lash out with her nails.

"Why do you always make it about me?" Kairi said, "This isn't about what I know or don't know. It's about you and the way that you treat people," Kairi stared at Selphie, waiting for her reaction.

"How _I_ treat people? Do you hear_ yourself_?" Selphie said.

"You're doing it again! Why can't you see it? You treat me like an object. You boss everyone around and then you belittle them. Did you ever let Tidus get in a word?" Selphie settled into a shocked silence, but it didn't last long.

"Tidus and I…," Selphie stammered, "Why are you so mean, Kairi? I didn't think you were this shallow."

"I guess we both underestimated each other on that account," Kairi agreed, not a little venom in her words. Selphie squinted at Kairi and made a face, before turning around and walking off, her heels clattering on the sidewalk as she went. Kairi turned too and walked in the opposite direction, silent as could be.

a/n Sorry for taking so long to update. I've been very busy lately. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I really enjoyed writing it. Feel free to leave a review. Feedback is the best.


	4. Falling Up and Falling Down

Chapter Four

Falling Up and Falling Down

The library was quiet, but for the occasional scratch of pencil on paper and the light pitter- patter of fingers on keyboards. Strange, Kairi realized, how calm things were without Selphie around.

She hadn't talked to her friend for nearly two weeks now. They hadn't been a long or stressful two weeks. Kairi had other friends, after all, and was busy with her studies and her job. The weeks had been nice, uneventful, and a little dull.

Kairi scanned her textbook. Reading was so much easier when she wasn't interrupted with descriptions of Tidus' eyes every thirty seconds or the seven steps to perfect skin according to blah blah blah magazine.

Indeed, Kairi would often pause to think about Selphie, or rather how nice everything seemed to be going without Selphie. It was silly, it was crazy, it was unimaginable, how easy life had become, how completely simple her days were now without the useless drama.

Kairi missed Selphie, but she would not admit it to herself. And she would never, ever admit it to Selphie. She was content with continuing as things were: no daily humiliations, no crazy scenes, and no more trips to host clubs in the middle of the night.

Of course, Selphie had other plans.

* * *

It was seven fifty-five in the morning. Kairi sat at her desk, idly reading a novel on her phone, as she waited for the professor to begin his lecture. Kairi had elected to take Intermediate Macroeconomic theory first thing in the morning. Mostly because she wanted get it out of the way as quickly as possible. Economics wasn't exactly her favorite subject. Selphie had, of course, insisted on registering with her. It was one of the few classes that overlapped in their majors.

They had always sat next to each other in the center of the room. Not too close to the front, not too far to the back. Or, they did until two weeks ago. Selphie still came to class, of course, and she was still consistently late. But she wouldn't sit next to Kairi. Selphie would float into the classroom just like she always did, with her hair curled and makeup perfectly in place; so completely put together, so completely opposite to Kairi, who was always half a mess. She would squeeze into the row at the far left of the room, as far from Kairi as she could possibly get without melding into the wall. Selphie would spend the rest of the class paying attention, looking straight at the professor, occasionally taking notes, and never, ever glancing at Kairi.

Kairi didn't mind. She hadn't looked at Selphie either. Except, maybe peripherally, to make sure that Selphie wasn't looking at her.

Kairi turned the page of her novel with a swipe of her finger, completely sure that things would be the same this morning as they had for the last two weeks. Then, two strange events occurred that threw Kairi off a little more than she would be willing to admit.

First, Selphie arrived to class on time. The door slid open and naturally Kairi ignored it, engrossed as she was in her reading. Selphie walked into class. For all the world, she looked as put together as always. Her hair was still done, her nails were still painted, her clothing was delightfully wrinkle-free. Though she did have slight bags under her eyes, perhaps the price of punctuality.

The second strange event took Kairi by surprise. Kairi didn't notice Selphie's approach and didn't look up until she heard someone plop down in the seat to her immediate left.

Selphie was staring straight ahead. The screen at the front of the classroom was rolling down mechanically in anticipation of the day's lecture and Selphie followed it with her eyes, like there was nothing else in the world. Then, when it was all the way down and there was nothing remotely interesting to watch at the front of the classroom, she reached into her bag and pulled out her pencil case and notebook.

Kairi stared at her unabashedly, eyebrows raised as she waited for Selphie to say something, for that must have been her purpose in choosing the seat next to Kairi. There were plenty of seats on the other side of the classroom, locations that would better enable Selphie to ignore Kairi. Ignoring Kairi was what Selphie was doing now, anyway. And yet Selphie had sat next to her. There must be a reason, Kairi knew. It would only be a matter of time. Selphie wasn't famous for her patience.

So, Kairi watched Selphie expectantly as she opened up her bright purple notebook and flipped through the pages, taking an unprecedented interest in economics. When Selphie grew tired of the graphs and equations, she meticulously arranged her pens and pencils on her desk, by color. When they were straight as could be Kairi watched as Selphie absently doodled a picture of a dog in the margin of an empty page. And then, class started. Kairi wondered if there had ever been a longer five minutes.

The professor got up in front of the class, made an awkward joke, and began his lecture. Kairi paid attention to the professor. She always did, especially in the classes that she didn't like. The first half of the class proceeded much as it would have had Selphie been seated at the far left of the classroom. Kairi watched Selphie, peripherally, to see if Selphie was watching her. She wasn't. It was utterly perplexing.

Maybe Selphie was waiting for Kairi to reach out first. Kairi, unconsciously scrunched up her nose at the thought. Then, realizing that the professor was looking right at her, quickly unscrunced it.

But halfway through the lecture, Kairi felt something pushing lightly at arm. Kairi looked down and saw that Selphie had pushed a folded piece of paper to her. Kairi eyed the offending paper, sighed lightly and, as quietly and discreetly as possible, opened it. In pink ink Selphie had written, _Can we talk?_

Kairi felt obligated to respond, _Passing notes? Really?_

Selphie read the message, crossed her arms, and didn't write anything back for a few minutes until she, seemingly, got over Kairi's unnecessary sass.

_Please, Kairi?_

Kairi didn't respond and she didn't feel bad about it.

Until some time later, when she did feel bad about it.

* * *

The Library (12:05)

Kairi stared the blank document. The white screen scared unabashedly back at her. Papers were hard. Especially papers with stupid prompts. She had been staring at her screen for the past ten minutes, thinking about paper topics, potential theses, and how stupid all of her ideas seemed to be. She couldn't concentrate.

Selphie and those stupid notes were clogging up Kairi's thoughts. It was as if a battle were being waged in Kairi's head. On the one hand, there was the fact that her friend had clearly tried to reach out, maybe even apologize. On the other, there was the way that she had done it and, of course, Kairi's nagging suspicion that she might be better off without Selphie in her life.

At any rate, Kairi was finding it difficult to study. She closed her books and packed them away into her bag in defeat. It was lunchtime anyway. Kairi supposed that she could go down to the student cafeteria and get something to eat before returning to the library and working on one of her papers. Sometimes, she wondered if her professors all got together to coordinate due dates.

* * *

Sora didn't particularly want to be in the library and he didn't particularly need to be in the library. He didn't have any huge exams coming up this week. This week was relatively easy for him, actually. He had already eaten breakfast at home, so he didn't need a place to take his food. He supposed that he was going to the library more out of habit than anything else. Where else would he go? It wasn't like he knew all that many people on campus.

He didn't exactly have a wide circle of people he would consider friends. And the ones that he did, well, they were all sleeping. Most of them weren't university students anymore, the ones that had actually gone. What would be the point?

Even if he did decide to make friends on campus, it wasn't like he would be able to keep his job from them. That would be awkward.

So, up the stairs Sora climbed, coffee in one hand, and the other hung loosely from his jacket pocket. His book bag was slung lazily over one shoulder, heavy as always.

Sora had bought his coffee from the school cafeteria, and was using the library's west staircase, which connected to the library entrance closest to the cafeteria. He smiled to himself, he liked the west staircase because it was usually empty, quiet, peaceful. Odd, that such and introvert would be a host. Riku pointed it out all the time.

He remembered a conversation he had had with his sister, Areith.

* * *

"Don't you like people?" She had asked him. They were in her room, and she was lying sprawled out on her bed. Sora had sat on the floor, with his back propped up lazily against her closed door.

Areith's room was pink. Sora remembered that it had been spring that day, there were birds chirping outside her window. On her bedside table were fresh flowers, Areith loved flowers, but they always made Sora sneeze.

And sneeze he did, in reply to her question. Sora had just come home from school and the first thing he did was waltz into Areith's room and plop down on her floor and proclaim that he would be perfectly happy if he never had to talk to anyone but her for the rest of the night.

When he had finished sneezing, he took a moment to consider her question, before responding, "I do, but sometimes it's nice to just… relax."

"So, to avoid people, you come in here and talk to me?"

* * *

Sora was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. He looked up instinctively and saw a flash of red hair and knew in an instant who it was.

He didn't know if it was the shock of seeing her or the fact that he wasn't paying any particular attention to where he was placing his feet on the stairs, but he tripped forward, proving that falling up the stairs was completely possible. Gravity was a cruel mistress. His coffee, of course, spilled all over the stairs in all of its caffeinated glory.

"Shit!" He said. The girl apparently hadn't seen or heard his little trip, or the mess that it had created. She must have been lost in thought; she walked right into the coffee, or rather slid.

It was like one of those moments from a stupid movie, where everything is in slow motion for no reason. The lack of friction between the stairs and her shoes, caused by his spilled coffee, made her feet accelerate faster than the rest of her body, and Sora could do nothing but watch as the chick with the crazy friend slipped down the stairs to the bottom of the landing. Maybe a five-stair slide. Not one for the record books, but far nonetheless. Sora was frozen in shock for a moment.

"Are you alright?" He called down to her, dropping his bag on the stairs where it was and running down the five steps to the landing, where the girl lay sprawled on the ground. He crouched next to her, and waited for her to speak.

"I… I think so…" She was looking around, still in shock, when her eyes met his they narrowed slightly in recognition. He swallowed nervously.

"Did you hit your head?" Sora asked. Her books had fallen all over the place, he scrambled to pick to them up.

"No," She said. She pushed herself into a sitting position, placed her elbows on her legs and her face in her hands, like she didn't want to look at him, or didn't want him to see her.

Sora was pretty good at reading people. Especially women. It was a trick of his trade. At this moment, he knew beyond a doubt that she was embarrassed. Odd, Sora thought, because he was the one that probably should have been embarrassed.

"I'm so sorry," Sora said as he placed her book bag at her feet. She lifted her head from her hands and looked at it like it were a foreign object, then to him, their eyes met. Perhaps this was the first time that she had looked at him without glaring. She was very pretty, it hit him. Slim, with long legs, a kind face, and delicate lips. He wondered if she noticed when he glanced down at them.

Then, her eyes narrowed into a glare. He should have known.

"I… your coffee! This is your fault!" She exclaimed. Sora's eyes darted around the staircase, as if searching for someone else blame, but it was only the two of them in the west staircase and it _was_ truly his fault.

"I tripped and before I was really able to get up and warn you, you went sliding down the staircase. It's my fault. I'm sorry," Sora said. The girl continued to glare at him for a moment. Sora bit his bottom lip. It was a habit that he had mostly broken himself of since he was sixteen, but every now and then he would catch himself doing it and feel ridiculous. Her look softened.

"It's ok. Its not like you did it on purpose," She said, though the last part seemed a bit skeptical. Then, she actually smiled a little.

"We keep meeting and every time we do, something bad happens…" Sora said, half joking. She nodded her head.

"You almost puked on me, we ran into each other in the library, that thing with Selphie, and this," She shook her head, "We need to consciously avoid each other," She said, clearly trying to clear the air.

"I didn't almost puke on anyone… I…." Sora paused and shook his head, it was useless, "I don't think we really know each other. I'm Sora," He stopped and waited for her name.

"I'm Kairi," She said, and then casually pushed herself up off the floor. She was graceful, he thought, fluid. He supposed that was a benefit of wearing sneakers instead of heels.

Sora stood too.

"Look Kairi, I'm really sorry about this," Sora scratched the back of his head lazily, "maybe I can get you a coffee, to make it up to you?"

She considered his request for a moment, and he was almost positive that she would turn it down. But she surprised him.

"Alright, I was going to get lunch anyway. We could go together," She smiled again.

* * *

They didn't go to the school cafeteria. It was loud and crowded and when Sora saw it, he asked if they could go somewhere else, his treat.

"Aren't places like that your, I don't know, _natural habitat_," Kairi asked, a little snarkier than she mean. Sora didn't react much except to shrug his shoulders and the conversation was dropped. They walked together to a café just off campus. It was a pretty typical coffee shop, which sold an assortment of drinks and pastries. The room was well lit with neutral colors and wooden floors, and tables scattered around a coffee counter.

Kairi took no time in ordering the most expensive drink from the list, something with mocha, caramel, sprinkles, the whole nine yards in the largest size it came in. It was about time, she figured, that the money he weaseled out of the women who frequented Club Midori was reinvested. If he was irritated by this, Sora didn't show it, though his eyes may have widened a little when the order was rung up. Or, maybe that was Kairi's imagination.

When their drinks were ready, Sora led her to a seat by the window. There they sat in silence for a few moments. Kairi knew she should not try her drink yet, she knew it would be too hot, but she felt compelled to at least take a sip if only to break out of this awkward pause. But then, she thought back on all of the times in her life when she had taken a sip of coffee before she should have. Kairi decided, instead, to say the first thing that came to mind.

"Do you have a car?" Sora looked a little taken aback by the sudden question.

"Ummm, no." He responded and glanced to the side.

"Why not?" Kairi asked, as thoughts of all the stupid things that Selphie had told her about Tidus's decadent lifestyle came flooding into her mind. She couldn't really imagine living that way. Not someone so young, and certainly not Sora, or _this _Sora in the jeans and tee shirt with the glasses and the bag full of physics books. It was like he was a completely different species from the man she remembered from before, all done up, ready to woo the hell out of all the girls that lined up to talk with him.

"The usual reasons," Sora replied.

"You can't drive?" Kairi asked. Sora laughed and shook his head, but pointedly didn't reply. They fell into silence again, and this time Kairi took a sip of her coffee monstrosity. It was disgusting, as expected, but it did taste expensive. If she had to have bruises all along her back, at least she had gotten something out of the host.

Kairi eyed Sora, figuring that, as she had started the last conversation, it was now his turn. She waited several awkward moments. Then, several more. When it was approaching what must have been a minute of silence, she spoke up again.

"You're not much of a conversationalist. You must suck at your job," Kairi said.

"You're pretty obsessed with my job." Sora commented, then frowned and took a sip of his drink, a plain latte, which was probably delicious and made Kairi rather jealous of him. Kairi actually blushed at his comment.

"I…"

"I guess you're really like most girls, aren't you? Hmmm, wanting to know about my car, commenting on my people skills, what's next? No, don't tell me, you're going to ask why I do what I do?" Sora narrowed his eyes at her expectantly, and Kairi glared right back. So much for a nice coffee encounter.

"Well, what do you tell girls when they ask you that?" Kairi asked.

"So I can meet beautiful women… like you," Sora's expression softened, and he locked eyes with her, and though he was charming, and he was obviously trying his very best to be charming, she wasn't charmed. But when their locked eyes in that moment, though Kairi would never admit it to herself, she felt for the briefest of moments that she knew exactly what he was thinking and exactly what he was feeling. No, she wasn't charmed, she was moved. But then the moment was over, before she could put words or thoughts to those odd feelings, and it faded into the past, doomed to remain exactly what it was, a moment.

"You do try hard, I'll give you that," Kairi said, "It's not true, is it?" Sora smiled at this.

"What do you think?"

"I think it's all about the money," Kairi smiled sweetly as she said this, surprised that she was so bold. Perhaps she _had_ hit her head.

"You're probably right," Sora said and smiled right back at her, just as sweetly.

"I never doubted that I was," Kairi crossed her arms and her smile turned into more of a smirk.

"Self-confident, aren't we?" Sora asked, and her eyes darted away.

"I have a lot of opinions, not all of them are right, but I've found that some are," Kairi said, "Hosts are greedy bastards; I never doubted that."

"Greedy bastards? Please go on…" Sora said. Kairi stared back at him.

"I…I…. Yes. Greedy. You trick women. You make them think they're in love with you and get them to keep coming back. And all the while you get them to order overpriced drinks and make commissions on the profit. Don't think I don't know. It's despicable…" Kairi felt that she may have overstepped several social boundaries in one fell swoop. Sora shook his head at her.

"So we force them in the door?"

"No..."

"And we force them to buy the most expensive drinks on the menu?"

"You're suggesting…" He cut her off.

"And we force them to fall in love with us?" That was it for Kairi.

"You might as well, the way they fawn over you. I know how it works. You say nice things and you look at them with _those_ eyes and make them feel like they're _important_. Then, you scam them…" Kairi crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. Sora, for his part, looked relatively relaxed considering Kairi's full on verbal assault.

"So what if we do make them feel important? Women come in because they've never felt loved in their entire lives. Is it so wrong that we help them feel that way?" Sora asked. Kairi was silent for a moment. Has Selphie, she wondered, never felt loved? It was all about Selphie, she realized. Everything she had said to Sora since they had left the stairwell had been completely about Selphie.

"But it's not real," Kairi said.

"Of course not," Sora said, then considered his words for a moment, "Most of our clients know that."

"My friend, the one that's 'fucking crazy,' really believed that Tidus loved her," Kairi looked down at the table, not sure why she had referred to Selphie as her _friend_. They certainly weren't friends anymore.

"I stand by that. I didn't mean to insult _you _but she really…"

"She really was tricked," Kairi said. Sora's eyes hardened.

"Tidus is whiney and unpleasant and I'm not going to take responsibility for what he did or didn't do to your friend," Sora stood up suddenly, "I'm sorry you slipped on my coffee." He made to leave.

"Wait!" Kairi stood suddenly too, Sora turned around, "I… I know it's just a job. I've been rude… I'm sorry." Sora shook his head at her.

"You have been. I was wrong about you. You're not like other women. You might actually be crazier than your friend," Kairi's mouth dropped open at his words and Sora let out a soundless laugh, then turned and left the café.

a/n Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I'm so sorry I took so long to update. I will really try to update faster next time. Please feel free to leave a review to harass me into updating (or not haha)!


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